Ever-consuming Grief

Sally; just an unwanted and overlooked dog in a kill shelter. The pup that broke my heart! | Source

Loving the Unwanted

Grief is a ever-consuming pain that will burn in your throat like acid, eat away at your heart, take your breath away, push you to tears, tear you apart, force you on your knees...

It wakes you up at night and has you vulnerable almost every second of the day. The food suddenly tastes horrible; or has no taste at all. And ever simple thing can set you off; leave you angry or hurt or crying.

When you take those in that others leave behind, some think you should get used to it. The ranchers don't worry much about the cattle send to slaughter (and I don't mean that in a bad way). It's a business. So somebody adopting mainly Seniors should get used to it?

I guess I am a failure!

Adopting a Senior is a tricky business. You fall in love, get used to them, enjoy their presence, value their every existence....

You try to forget that they are older, often sick, sometimes neglected, too often heartbroken from having been left behind by those they loved...

I stopped counting Fancy's age when she was ten years old... She died at almost 19! When Queeny came to me, she was almost ten years old; in a breed that rarely lives longer than twelve or fifteen! Some of my kitties came to me from kill shelters; in such a bad shape that you wondered how they made it that long.

When you take in a dog that is over ten, especially a pure bred dog, you are signing up for the heartbreak!

But how can I not!?

The fat and almost hairless dog with the Cushings and that said look on her face... Nobody wanted it!

She became what made my day; every day a good day!

How can it not be a good day when she loves me more than anything in her life?!

I find myself waking up at night... feeling the lack of that small body sleeping close to me for comfort; wishing I had spend more time with her, let her do more things, done this, done that, done anything, done more, done less...

Grief is like a wound that festers...

So what do you do?

Nothing will fix the loss you feel!

But like wound it will heal if you let it!

Healing doesn't mean that you stop loving them! It just means that you remember the good with them, not the bad about them leaving! And isn't their love worth a good memory?

The pain never truly goes away, but the mind has a way of helping you: You don't forget the pain, but you will slowly forget the intensity of it. And if it was once an unwanted you loved so much... There are more dying every day!

Is a new unwanted soul the solution? For me it is!

There are too many out there every day that would be jealous of your love for that lost one; if they were capable of feeling jealousy.

For them it is a question of survival!

No, there are no others like the one you lost! You can't replace them and never should let that 'new one' feel like a replacement!

But I belief that God does things for a reason and that there are such things as being reborn. I lost Cora in 1999 and never would have thought that I would ever feel that special love again.

Don't take me wrong, I love all of mine!

But sometimes you meet one that is different! The love you feel is different to that towards any other.

You meet, look at each other, ...know each other!

Like you have met in another life!

When Sally left me, I suddenly had others getting closer to me! A dog that would normally not pay me much mind... suddenly sleeps in my bed and follows me!

Yes, they feel my grief and are trying to help me heal. But some of them just act different!

Remember the good!

If you wouldn't feel grief, it wouldn't have mattered enough when it was alive! But if it did matter that much to you, would it want you to feel such consuming pain?!

Or would it want to create that smile on your face when you remember it; just like it did when it showed you it's love?!

While our own backyards may only have 'minor' dangers such as bugs, a lot of us pet owners are Outdoors people!
That may come with a heavy price when we leave our secure yards and venture into a World that really...

There are over forty thousand varieties of rice, over a thousand varieties of potatoes and hundreds of varieties of pasta...
...AND, belief it or not, a breakfast food item used in a total different way!